Blood Ties
by plutospawn
Summary: Undeserving of a funeral, of a memory. No one in Dust Town was ever born wanting to be a criminal, it just helped if you became very good at it. Takes place after purging Dust Town of the carta.


No.

Somebody had set off a trap. Zevran? That didn't make any sense. Frannie Brosca rubbed at her sinuses. There was too much blood throbbing behind her ears; she couldn't hear anything clearly.

The dwarven corpse tangled up in the tripwire wore duster leathers. Cheap as the brand etched across his face. Definitely Zevran's handiwork. Leave it to an assassin to turn the thugs' own traps into weapons against them.

They'd laugh about it later, she was sure. With just enough drink in her to keep her cheeks warm, she'd chuckle and say, "Hey Zev, remember that time you tossed one of the carta onto their own tripwire?" That would please Zevran. That would make him proud. That would make him say something far too fast and too witty for her to think of at the moment.

Why did time always stop? Slowed down like she was jogging waist-deep in mollases. Fran wasn't there anymore, she couldn't feel it.

Dust Town smelled of stone and blood and metal. It smelled like home. She dropped her bow. Maybe she tripped over Jarvia's head, maybe she kicked it. A stupid thing really, to fling herself knee-first down onto the stone floor. Gravel and dirt stuck to where she'd skinned her knees and elbows. It had to sting soon, the numbness was making everything in her chest want to shriek, it was giving way to panic.

Fran did a quick head count. Alistair, Wynne, Zevran. Everyone was there, everyone was fine. Unless it was her. Maybe she was dead or dying and just too ignorant to pick up on it.

She really shouldn't have abandoned her longbow on the floor.

"Leske?" Fran's ears were too clogged. It sounded like the whispered plea bounced off the walls and reverberated throughout the hideout. She didn't sound like herself. Her voice wasn't supposed to crack.

There was nothing behind those brown eyes. Glassy, dull. She gripped his shoulders.

"Leske? I didn't--" Touch him. Hurt him. He was supposed to have made it. Kill everyone else, but forgive Leske. She shook him. "Say something!"

His head tipped back and the dagger wound in his throat opened up like a macabre grin. Definitely Zevran's work.

The elf had enough sense to occupy himself with a dilapidated weapons' rack. But Alistair wouldn't stop staring. He looked like he wanted to vanish from the room, from the world, but he wouldn't turn his gaze.

So he watched as all of the "no's" sobbed in the universe did not bring Leske back. As Fran continued to shake Leske's body, beg him to get up, bury her face in his chest, smear her forehead with her best friend's blood.

Alistair didn't get it. When did Grey Wardens grow hysterical over dead lackeys? Insignificant, branded, casteless scum who used your trust in them to set you up, stab you in the back. Undeserving of a funeral, of a memory. No one in Dust Town was ever born wanting to be a criminal, it just helped if you became very good at it. For all the roses and soft glances Fran needed him to get it. And for the first time since she met him, Alistair was stricken without a word to say as he stood awkwardly, looking for a sympathetic way to escape.

Wynne got it. Wynne was the one that held her, pulled her away from the body. Wynne didn't ask for an explanation or tell her to stop crying. She just offered soft,clucking noises as she stroked bony fingers through Fran's hair.

The wretched mewling of a child. Surrounded by corpses. A job well done. Fran rubbed her face, humiliated.

Fran stood up, brushed herself off, collected her bow from the floor. Wynne's hand slipped from the Warden's shoulder; the spot it left felt cold and vulnerable, but Fran couldn't bring herself to ask for more support. It was probably better that they didn't know everything. Maybe she was being selfish, wanting to mourn it alone.

She nodded toward the exit and they all started to follow.

Alistair cleared his throat. "Frannie?"

"We need to get back to Bhelan," she said. The man who was obviously the better choice for king. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he was the father of the nephew she'd never met and kept her sister and mother safe. She felt sick.

The group plodded through the rest of the hideout in silence. Fran only hoped the trek took long enough for the redness to leave her face, for the puffiness to recede from her eyes. That was one of the things Leske used to help her with: to cry in private.

It was the Grey Wardens' burden to unite the people during a Blight. They weren't hampered by ties to friends or family. They were the unbiased voice of necessity and reason.

If their paths had been different, if their roles reversed, Fran knew that she would've done the very same thing that Leske did to her.


End file.
